Knaves of Coins
by LadySilver
Summary: What Danny and Boyd most have in common is an outsider's perspective. AU-post season 2.


_A/N: This was originally started for the gen battle on DW, was temporarily abandoned, and is now being posted to tumblr. The plan is three connected parts featuring Danny and Boyd. More is possible as there's no intended plot to structure those three parts. Comments and concrit are always welcome on my stories, and there's nothing more motivating than thoughtful discourse. Thank you for reading!_

**Knaves of Coins**

by LadySilver

"Have you ever thought about trying out for the team?" Danny asked him a couple of days after the game.

Boyd was walking through the hall, his backpack slung over one shoulder, and his eyes down out of old habit. When he looked at his over-sized feet, he didn't have to notice how everyone else's eyes slid past him like skates on freshly smoothed ice. Though he took up more physical space than most of his classmates, he'd long ago developed the habit of walking with his elbows in and shoulders hunched, in unconscious acceptance of their rejection. For someone so big, he'd been surprisingly invisible.

Now, with each step, he tried to walk a little louder, stand a straighter. He didn't have to care about how the other students treated him anymore because he didn't _need _them anymore. Or, so he kept reminding himself.

Danny's question interrupted one of those mental reminders and Boyd had to blink a couple of times before he could focus on the fact that another person was talking to him. He threw a glance over his shoulder in case he wasn't the target of the question. From down the hall, he heard Erica's laugh and the distinctive click of Isaac's nails against the metal locker door. His packmates were in the building, but they were not the ones doing the speaking.

Boyd turned back.

Danny was pacing him, his step confident and his body slightly canted toward Boyd's, leaving no doubt that he knew whom he was talking to and that he was interested in a response. "You were really good," Danny complimented, his mouth curving into an appreciative smile. "I've never seen someone step out of the stands and play like that." He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and slowed to a stop, fully prepared, it seemed, to stop for a chat.

For a moment, Boyd was tempted to push past him and keep walking, to pretend that he hadn't heard anything. People didn't dare physically antagonize Boyd, but he knew well enough about how they could use words to cut and stab. More, how they could use silence to bludgeon and smother.

As much as he wanted to keep walking, he couldn't do it.

Over the years, he'd pretended to have not heard a whole lot of things that had been said to and about him, and he couldn't do it anymore.

Boyd drew up against a blank spot of wall in between the lockers and a classroom door and forced his gaze to meet Danny's. Danny's brown eyes crinkled with an expanded grin and his body eased into a less guarded posture. Boyd tried to match the stance, though he couldn't yet bring any expression to his face except careful wariness.

"It was fun," Boyd answered with, what he knew, was a non-committal comment.

Danny's eyebrows quirked in quiet encouragement, and Boyd gusted out a breath. "Hell, it was the best," he amended. Verbal superlatives couldn't do justice to the thrill of excitement that had surged through him. Holding his own against players who had spent hundreds of hours practicing, the heft of the ball in his net and the ripping of the grass beneath his cleats as he used his new speed to tear down the field—if he needed validation for becoming a werewolf, that had been it.

Danny nodded sagely. "Bit you hard, huh?"

"What?" Boyd's cultivated wariness snapped back in to place and he stood up straighter, arms crossing. His white t-shirt stretched over tensed muscles.

"The cheering, the lights," Danny clarified with a sidelong look. "That's what got me the first time I played in a real game. Practices suck, but when it's time to step out onto the field to play…Did I say something wrong?"

Boyd forced himself to relax, to let his arms fall back to his sides. Danny had never done anything to him, and even though he was friends with Jackson, that seemed like a situation that came equipped with its own punishment. "It's nothing, man," he answered. Anything else he could have said was squashed before it hit his lips. He couldn't tell what Danny knew or what he'd seen, if he was fishing for information or opening the way for a confession.

Then there was the strangest possibility: maybe Danny just wanted to shoot the breeze.

Boyd could count on one hand how often he'd had a conversation with a non-family member that wasn't a business transaction.

Danny cocked his head as if sensing the turmoil in his one-time teammate. After a long moment of waiting in vain for Boyd to elaborate, he turned the conversation back with a careful "You play in your spare time?" He took in Boyd's height and build with a casual sweep. "You look like a guy who knows his way around the weight room," he commented. Leaning against the nearest locker like they did this all the time, Danny mused out loud, "The Y fields a pretty good intramural team. Is that where you learned?"

"Nah," Boyd answered with a shake of his head. "I never touched a stick before the other night." The confession shocked him even as he heard the words come out of his mouth; he had no reason to be that forthcoming, and a lot of reason not to be. Something about Danny, though, seemed to inspire trust.

Danny's eyes widened in surprise and he nodded appreciatively. "Then you should _definitely _try out for the team."

Boyd rolled his shoulders and listened again for Erica and Isaac. He knew that whatever they were up to, it was going to land someone in trouble. Their ideas of how to use their new abilities and his couldn't be more different, though, he reflected, all were about exacting some kind of revenge. The thing was, the kind he found on the field had turned out not to be the kind he was looking for. There was no way to explain that, though, so he shook his head again and summed it up with a concise: "Not really my thing."

"Too bad, man," Danny said, sounding saddened at Boyd's rejection. "You seem like you'd fit right in,"

Through the din of teenagers trying to cram all their socializing into the five minute passing period cut Erica's laugh. Erica, who had come to the game with him, because she wanted to hang out. With him. Erica, whom he had left alone in the stands because he thought he had something to prove.

"Playing was fun," Boyd reiterated. "Nothing wrong with watching, though."

"Yeah," Danny answered, after a moment of thought. "It does give you a different perspective, seeing things from the outside."

Boyd started, for a second wondering if Danny had meant more with that remark than just a comment on lacrosse positions. Careful examination of the guy's expression, though, showed nothing more cryptic than the slight glaze of introspection, which he quickly shook off.

"That's why I like playing goal, you know," Danny continued. Pushing off from the locker, he stepped back out into the hall. An out-turn of his hand invited Boyd to join him, to continue their conversation while they walked. Boyd schooled his face to hide his surprise, trying instead to look like the kind of person who expected nothing else. The expression felt like a cheap mask, a laughable knock-off of the real thing.

Danny's only response was to explain his statement as if he knew Boyd would want to hear it. "I get to see a different game when I step away from the center of action," he stated. He glanced around at the people rushing through the hall—all seemingly oblivious to the pair whose physical presences had meant so much to them on the field—and added: "That's not something a lot of people understand."

"Do you ever get tired of being on the outside?" Boyd asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

Danny let out a short laugh. "Sometimes. Not as much as you might think, though." He slapped Boyd on the shoulder like they'd just shared a good joke and turned toward the open door of his classroom. "Listen, let me know if you change your mind."

Boyd's eyebrows went up. "You for real?"

"I saw you out there. You're _unreal_," Danny answered, before disappearing into the rapidly filling classroom.

Boyd could only respond with a short nod. Erica's laugh zinged again through the hallway at the same time as a floppy haired white boy with saggy pants slammed into him from the side. The boy started to protest with a "Hey, watch-". Then his mouth clamped shut as he saw whom he'd run into, and he skittered into the room. Boyd barely noticed the interaction.

Calmly, he set off to find his packmates, the glow of Danny's comments strengthening his step.


End file.
